The twentieth century has
seen many changes in the relationship between the self and society. The root of
many of these changes is the advancement in the technological evolution of
communication assimilation between society and the individual. The mass media
developed in the twentieth century has given the individual a greater social
perspective, and created a psychological transformation of the process of the
concept of identity (self) and its interaction with its social environment. The
following is an examination of two theories about the self that document
historical viewpoints of the affect of media communications on the societies of
their time periods. We shall bear witness to a fundamental change in these
perceptions of the relationship between the self and society. Thus, we shall
gain perspective on the exchanges of today’s interaction.

George Hubert Mead’s concept
of the self, and Erving Goffman’s dramaturgical model of interaction provide
historical viewpoints on the subject. In their examination of the development
of the self, they pose a question. Does the self develop through a process of
social exposure and education (Mead), or do we learn to act out socially
prescribed roles for each given situation (Goffman)?

To hypothesize, let us view
the mind as a complex computer. There exist a variety of social inputs
(experiences or examples) that are stored and processed for retrieval in the
formation of outputs for interaction. Mead and Goffman both recognize this
action, but their evaluations of how inputs are received and analyzed are
conceptually different. The main disagreement uncovered is about how they view
the makeup of the self.

Mead sees the self as a
process of internal social conversation, a continuous exchange of information.
How a person interacts depends on the perceived answers to the following
questions: “How do “I” want to respond to a given situation?” and “How does
society expect me to respond?” When a compromise is reached the agreed upon
action is taken.

According to Mead this
exchange is continuous. The self is constantly examining the “I” and the “Me”
aspects of every social experience, including while in dream. Each new experience
adds to the power of the “I” to decide what it wants, as well as providing
clearer view of what the “Me” expectations should be. In this way, Mead
discloses the bond between individuals and their surroundings.

For Mead, “ones self” is
experienced through the individual’s relationship with society. All of the
“I’s” motivations are located through interaction, and the “Me” expectations
provide the means to obtain them. This creates an exchange. We present
ourselves differently to one another depending on the value of their
relationship to our “I” as well as the perception of the expected “Me” of the
encounter.

According to Mead, The
process begins in childhood. Childhood play is an initiation into the world of
social interaction. It is a process of education that is separated into two
different stages: the play, and the game stages.

The play stage is similar to
what you call “monkey see, monkey do.” The child copies actions that are
associated with adult roles. While playacting mother, father, doctor, etc. the
child imitates the actions of those whom he or she comes in contact with.
However, the child learns to associate different actions with different people.
Mead also points out that during this stage there is no unity to the child’s
actions. There exists little or no understanding of the meanings of the actions
to the different roles in the adult world. This stage is just for mimicking
that which the child experiences. It is in the game stage that individuals
become aware of the fact that various actions connect them into an interactive
system.

When a child starts to play
games, it recognizes that it must perform certain functions to keep the game
going. It is here that children discover the importance of themselves in
relation to others. The rules of the game provide an introduction to how one
accepts “Me” roles, and the taste of victory creates desire, and the “I.” With
this analysis of the play and game stage, Mead closely parallels the
dramaturgical model of interaction developed by Erving Goffman.

The individual’s actions in
Erving Goffman’s model are similar to that which occurs in Mead’s play and game
stages. The way in which Mead views a child mimicking adult roles, and
conforming to “Me” social expectations is a simplistic view of how Goffman
explains the development of the self.

Goffman sees the self as a
collection of “Me” roles. An individual goes through life gathering up a
multitude of identities that are drawn from in order to interact with others.
Each situation that individuals find themselves in has a pattern for
interaction to be acted out. These patterns are called “roles,” and the action
of acting them out is called “role performance.” The role and its performance
are developed in the following ways:

If the person or group (role
others) with whom one is interacting or exchanging are of former or close
acquaintance, then the pattern of performance comes from one of the developed
“Me” roles, or identities that had been stored within the self. Goffman
describes this by saying that we are people of appearance. Each new exchange
adds to the clarity of the expected performance of each side of that specific
interaction. We can define the closeness of two individuals by the amount of
rehearsal that they have had acting out their ”role performance” with each
other.

On the other hand, if the
individuals have no previous interaction, then the performance is one of
improvisation on the perceived definition of the interaction. During the new
acquaintance both sides develop a new “Me” role that is to be stored until the
next meeting. Each side is essentially taking notes on the other person’s
actions, and in turn is playing off what they sense for perceived optimal
outcome. Goffman calls this action the process of “role making.” He describes the
motives of “role making” in the following statement:

When an
individual appears before others his action will influence the definition of
the situation which they will come to have. Sometimes the individual will act
in a thoroughly calculating manner, expressing himself in a given way solely in
order to give the kind of impression to others that is likely to invoke from
them a specific response he is concerned to obtain.

(Goffman,
1959)

For Goffman, one experiences
one’s self as many selves. The individual‘s image adjusts to enact the role
performance that best depicts the “I’s” own self-concept in any given social
environment. We are merely actors performing who we believe ourselves to be,
and everyone else acts as critics judging our performance. Furthermore, each
critic is perceived to be looking for different things. We gear our performance
according to what response we want from them.

To compare Goffman to Mead in
Mead’s “I-Me” terms, Mead’s “I” is no longer a motivating, socially analytical
hemisphere of the self. Goffman views it as a perception of what people think
they are. Mead’s “Me” transforms from a social expectation or demand into a
defined role to be acted out. Mead’s self is developed through a process of
continuous “I-Me” conversation, where the inputs of social experience are
analyzed until a suitable compromise is met. In turn, this compromise is
recorded for use as references for future conversation over new interaction.
Goffman’s self is a collection of “Me” role patterns that are discovered,
defined in sense of purpose, then stored in memory for performance in future
interaction. The result is to create the appearance that individuals create an
identity or personality of what they perceive themselves to be in any given
circumstance. For Mead, one’s self is experienced through contact, evaluation,
and compromise in relationship to personal motivation, and for Goffman, through
the performance of multiple learned identities enacted to influence an
interaction.

Society exchanges. When
exploring the world of interaction, one must keep this in mind. In the previous
sections, we took a look at the theories developed by George Hubert Mead and
Erving Goffman. We saw substantial difference in the way the mind creates or
adapts the self for any given situation. They were documenting interaction or
exchange from different technological environments. Mead analyzed the social
interaction of the early twentieth century, and Goffman that of it’s middle.
The following is an examination of some of the advancements of exchange that
surfaced in the twentieth century and their relevance to these theories of the
self, society and interaction.

The twentieth century was a
period of rapid, continuous change in the semiotics of society. Technology in
the areas of transportation, communication, and in education had greatly
expanded the perceptual scope of an individual. Since there existed more access
to information, the makeup and processes of the self had become more complex.
All of the selves together form civilization, and civilization is interlocked
through the interaction and exchanges of each individual self. Therefore, the
processes of interaction had become more complex due to the amount of semiotic
and sensory information passed into and registered in the mind for use in
social exchange.

Goffman and Mead’s theories
must have been products of what they socially exchanged with their society’s
communication technologies of their given time periods. They differ because of
the way that the self and interaction adapted to the semiotic expression
technologies of the day. They are related because they are exploring the human
being and its relationship to civilization. In other words, Goffman essentially
began where Mead left by witnessing an evolution. Furthermore, each theory is
accurate for its time. Each acts as a documentation of the prevailing make up
of the self and its exchange with its present.

Again, the mind can be
simplistically viewed as a complex computer, where there exist a variety of
social inputs (experiences or examples) that are stored and processed to form
outputs for behavior. Technology has made its greatest impact on the amount and
variety of social inputs (sensory information) available. Communication, in all
forms, is social input.

A basic element of
communication is language and its use in conversation. When we exchange in
conversation we receive information. This is input. Conversation is an example
of one form of input. Another example is written word. Up until the twentieth
century, conversation and written word were the primary forms of daily mass
social input. Throughout the twentieth century, man witnessed the development
of an extremely vast new form of exchange; that of electronic mass media.

To show the influence of the
growth of electronic mass media on the makeup of the self, we shall explore a
parallel history of the twentieth century media with our two given theories
about the self. By examining the increase in the amount and variety of social
inputs in relation to these theories about the self, we can better understand
how those theories were constructed, as well as, how the exchange of self has
adapted over the years and the advancements of media technology.

George Herbert Mead lived
around the turn of the twentieth century. During this period, there existed
relatively few forms social input (few in relation to the amount existing
today). There was conversation, written word (books, literature, newspapers,
etc.), theater and early radio broadcasts. All of these relied on the
imagination of the individual to analyze and interpret the exchange. This use
of the processes of imagination, comprehension, and interpretation for social
input analysis is the sensory processing for Mead’s “I-Me” internal
conversation. The following flow chart is a summary of Mead’s concept of self
during exchange:

Input

(Conversation, written word, radio)

**

**

**

/\

/\

/\

/\

“I” Analysis“Me” analysis

(How do I want to react?)(How
does society

want me to react?)

\/

\/

**

**

**

Internal Conversation

**

**

**

Compromise and Storage

**

**

**

Output

(Exchange, Interaction)

For Mead, exchange is
separated into two influences; that of the individual’s desires vs. that of the
perception of societal demands. Also, the forms of mass societal input of the
time were not comprehensible, nor distributed for all members of society. There
existed barriers of language, education and accessibility. The inputs relied on
the acquired semiotic interpretation skills of the individual for their meaning
to be realized. Therefore if any of the social input of Mead’s time were to be
used as references for interaction or exchange, they must have been analyzed by
the process of Mead’s theory of internal conversation according to the
understanding and ability to interpret of the meaning of the exchange. In this
way, Mead’s “self” closely corresponds to the sophistication of the forms of
social input experienced in that time period. Therefore it can be hypothesized
that in any society where the daily social inputs are only those of the early
twentieth century, the makeup and workings of the self should be that of
Mead’s. (Please note that during Mead’s lifetime, radio, as an early form of
daily mass communication was in its early development and distribution.
Therefore, as a social input, it had little bearing on Mead’s analysis. The
same can be said about the influence of early motion pictures.)

Mead died in 1931. In the
years to follow, the world witnessed an expansion of social input due to the
advent of electronic mass media. Radio became commonplace, and the popularity
of motion pictures grew in significance. Radio and film were making it possible
for larger numbers of people hear or see something happening in distant
locations. For the first time, whole societies could experience the same social
input at the same time. A simple radio broadcast essentially linked all of the
selves within its range into one interaction or exchange. An example of the
influence that this had on a society was the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Third
Reich in Germany.

The Nazi party took over the
German society through an exploitation of the medias. Hitler and propaganda
master, Josef Geobbles, flooded all forms of social input with socially
motivating promotion. Radio broadcasts of powerful speeches matched with
inspiring Nazi literature bombarded the senses and social exchange of the
German people. The sight and sound of the Third Reich proposition seduced the
nation into a new social order. The people united around their belief in the
propaganda. Within one decade of its defeat in World War I, Germany reclaimed
its military productivity and a perception of genetic dominance. The artificial
development of a belief of superior hereditary genetic heritage matched with
the choice of a perceived common enemy united the German society into
performing the attempted genocide of Jewish population. The exchange created in
the medias provided a subliminal proof of a threat from Jewish population.The economic and sociological weapon of
monopolizing the exchange of the input of the mass communications of the time was
used in the manipulation of the social input of the German people causing a
lethal cultural psychosis. This process has been repeated time and again in
human history, and is prevalent today in Muslim nations with the enemy being
the United States.

The development of film
throughout the twentieth century had created the highest and most influential
forms of communication medium. Film, unlike other forms of communication,
leaves little room for the imagination to analyze that which it receives. The
social exchange is a perfect visual and audible recreation of sensory
perception of real life. It can, not only closely imitate real life
interaction, but it can also visualize thought as it appears to the individual.
Dream can be recreated. Emotions of fear, ecstasy, sorrow, anger, and hostility
can be inflicted on the audience. Even time can be displaced. With the proper
technical ability and creativity, the filmmaker can put his or her audience
just about anywhere, and in just about any mood.

However, the filmmaker does
not have complete control over its audience although the impact of early motion
pictures was extraordinary on its audiences. As the technology behind film and
filmmaking had evolved throughout the century, so had the expectations and
sensitivity of the film audiences. In comparison to the audiences of early
film, today’s audiences are less easily moved by visual and auditory
manipulations created by the filmmakers. Today the filmmakers must pay strict
attention to details and realism. Flaws are easily picked out, and destroy the
effectiveness, profitability, and survival of a film and its creators.

Film has become a
multi-billion dollar industry. Everyday hundreds of thousands flock to the
theaters or to their televisions to view films of one sort or another. It has
become very much a part of everyday life. In fact, many of today’s children
find their first friends in characters in cartoons and other children’s
programming. Films educate and communicate to us the world around us. It is a
great part of our daily social input. However, you can only watch and listen to
film. You cannot interact with the characters on your television, nor can you
jump in and live in the life of someone created on the screen. Film is a
recreation of two major sensory inputs mimicking thought and dream, but it is
not life. The individual absorbs a “Me role performance examples with a subdued
non-influential “I” of Mead’s observations.

When one sits in a theater
and begins to watch a film they become part of a captured audience. You are
embarrassed to speak or get up, the room is dark and all there is the auditor
and visual input of the film. This is when film has its greatest effect and the
social exchange of the media is the most sensory influential. The image is
larger than life, and the sound permeates the room. Furthermore, you have paid
an economic exchange to be there so you are determined to get you money’s
worth. You complete attention is coaxed into focusing on the film. It is a
special occasion and effort to go out to a theater and view a film. Just
getting dressed and driving to the theater adds to the expectation of the
forthcoming viewing. It is a different when watching film on television.

Television viewing of film or
any other of form of television communication is more passive than theater
viewing (although today’s advances in technology is attempting to close the gap
with the advent of quality home theater systems.) The senses and concentration
is not as effected by the smaller screen, the image is not as sharp, and your
attention is not as captured. Needless to say, it is not the most effective way
of viewing major motion pictures. However, television brings film into the
home. Television and film are presenting inanimate forms of a multitude of
“role others.” Although it doesn’t take in input spontaneously, it has the
impression of a social exchange by displaying “Me” roles, by power of example.

Television and film
characters are developed to provide models of the roles to be played during
different interactions, since many actors become wealthy and famous, they
become idyllic symbols and characteristics of their acting can be borrowed for
real life interactions. Although it’s primary purpose was for entertainment,
the advent of film and television had a profound effect on the processes of the
self and interaction.

Erving Goffman had witnessed
and hypothesized over this evolution of self in reaction to the influence of
the influx of vast dynamic social input of “Me” role examples with the
development of his dramaturgical model.

Erving Goffman’s Dramaturgical Model

OutputINPUTOutput
****

****

****

“Me”**“Me”

****

****

(“i”)

***

***

“Me”“Me”“Me”

***

***

OutputOutputOutput

(“i”) is merely a perception of who

Individuals perceive themselves as in a given
situation.

Goffman’s model, which was
developed in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, shows the makeup of the self as
a collection of the “Me” roles surrounding a perceived “i.” Input is in the
form of new “Me” roles that are stored, and then acted out in interaction. He
views the “i” as having no analytical power or influence on interaction, other
than a definition of one’s concept of identity. Why does Goffman choose to
eliminate the authority of Mead’s analytical “I?”

As stated earlier Goffman was
writing about the history of his present. During the 1950’s and 1960’s, the
advancement of film and television made it possible for the individual to
collect a multitude of “Me” roles without actually processing a two-way
interaction. For the individual, this was a somewhat confusing state of affairs
and a problem for input exchange and adaptation. Right in one’s living room the
individual could view input from around the world. Television was perceived as
exchange information about how the world was, how it should be, how it could
be, etc. It’s no wonder why Goffman saw the self as containing a
non-influential “I,” it was suppressed by excessive “Me.” The mass media
audience had been conforming to what it saw.

The force behind this
conformity was the inability of the “I” to analyze the validity of the input.
The old adage, “seeing is believing” applied. Culture reacted in shock to the
massive amount of information realistically conveyed in both the film and
television mediums. Televisions daily bombardment of social exchange was moving
character information to the individual faster than it could be processed. The
result, a psychological compromise: the playacting of the “Me” roles that were
received through the exchange of conscious that television portrayed. Thus,
creating a perception of conservative conformity in the United States in the
1950s. (What is curious about the Goffman model is its direct parallel to that
of schizophrenia and the manifestation of multiple personalities within an
individual.)

However, as we shall see,
this sociological shock of film and television was eventually adapted to as the
hidden influence of Mead’s “I” of social exchange emerged to influence a
modification of the Goffman’s “Me” role form of playacting interaction model.
This was caused by the technological advancement and distribution of the
electronic mass media forms of social input that were being culturally
accustomed to, and the sensory impact of the medium dissipated due to
familiarity of their effect on sensory interpolation.

The late 1960’s brought forth
the reawakening of the Mead’s drowned out “I” in American culture. The American
youth, spurred on by the perception of the futility of the Vietnam War and the
draft brought into the home by television, developed a paranoid psychotic break
caused by the schizophrenic like social input process and analysis evident in
Goffman’s dramaturgical model. The process of interaction was forced to evolve.
Psychosis can be described as any thought process and behavior that occurs
outside the range of a society’s acceptance or awareness. For example, violent
rage is the psychosis of anger. The social difficulty of the amount of one way
sensory information widely distributed to the mass media audience of the time
was that it was not conditioned to accurately process it. As well, the creators
of the communications did not comprehend the psychological effect on social
interaction with the medium within the growing society of its audience. Every
experiment with programming, whether good or bad, left its mark in the storage
of the “Me” roles relied upon for interaction. This accidentally created a
cultural psychosis driving a social evolution to adapt to the environment of
the input.

The first generation of
television children visually exposed to conflicting values, numerous roles to
follow, manipulative advertising, and the visual and auditory graphic revealing
of warfare in the medias, suffered a moral breakdown instigated by a paranoid
conflict of self. The confusion caused by the mass social input of the time
forced the “I” into questioning the validity of the cultural input environment.
With the widespread experimentation of “mind expanding” drugs, the occurrences
of artificial psychosis became a commonplace exchange within the self.The interaction of the mind with its
social environment, which could be described as, chemically induced alternate
dimensions of reality, experienced the inability to conform to societal “Me”
expectations of the era. They broke away from the social “Me” role expectations
of the previous generation by growing their hair in defiance, and exchanging
with music often created by participants of these surrealistic adventures of
“mind expansion.” The music became an extremely forceful, and seductive form of
social input that captivated its audience. Technology and marketing of the
music industry advanced and music was readily available on radio and easily accessible
recordings. It’s influential effectiveness increased with advancements in
stereo and high fidelity.

Ignited by the influence of the
music and idols of the early Rock and Roll phenomenon, the participants removed
themselves from society’s recommended exchanges and created their own, causing
a cultural revolution. Although the “hippie” culture created in the 1960’s was
truly not a huge cross section of the population, the attraction the movement
depicted in the mass media due to riots, concerts, and massive gatherings of
protest multiplied the influence of the seemingly psychotic influence of the
culture into the conscious of society.

With the same effect of
stardom in the motion picture industry, the financial windfall of the marketing
of music industry built a following for the chemically experimental and
frequently addicted musicians. This popularity transcended the following
decades spreading the minimization of the fear and increasing the curiosity of
experimenting with illicit “mind expanding” hallucinogenic chemistry. The
legacy of the 1960’s era is preserved and honored in the “baby boom”
generation, which is the controlling and largest generation of today. The music
of the period is still popular and the artists are revered. In England, knighthood
has been granted to several of the musicians. The producers of the re-creation
of the visual and auditory effects of psycotropic hallucinogenic experience in
motion picture and on television increased the attraction of altered reality
experimentations as well.

Although there is no question
about the evident genius of their artwork, a prevailing edict of the use of
experimental psycotropic drugs is readily accepted in all aspects of society
today due to the celebrity of the chemical experimentation of creative mass
media idols. The influence has permeated human society in all generations since
the mass media exposure of drug related creativity marketed in the 1960’s and
beyond.

Although man has been using
mood-altering substances since the beginning of the history of humanity, today
the financial market created by this, whether use of legal medications or
illicit drugs, is a staple in world economy. A market created in correlation
with the evolutionary process of self and its adaptation of sensory interpolation
of social inputs experienced. Whether in reality, fictional communications or
manufactured through chemical experimentation, social input information is
stored and used in interaction.

A wide philosophical and
psychosocial gap had developed throughout the 1960’s and 1970’s, and society
began to examine the influences of mass media social input on the minds of
children.Mead’s “I-Me”
conversation resurfaced in the process of gearing output in relation to
personal desire or one’s definition of their identity, and society began to
look into itself. Thus came the dawn of what was called the “Me generation” of
the 1970’s where emphasis was placed on the individual and an examination of
the inputs of society’s interactions. This included a great expansion of the
research of psychotropic chemistry of all kinds.

During the 1970’s the
American society began to evaluate the kind of influence that television was
giving. Many efforts of limited success were made to eliminate sex and violence
from the eyes and ears of children. Under pressure from the Federal
Communications Commission the networks began providing “clean” programming
during the prime time viewing hours. Greater care had been taken in the
development of high quality educational programs for children, and thus began
the replacement the often-violent cartoon favorites. However, changes made to
protect the children were not the only ones occurring during this period.

After several decades of
television and film viewing, the American society had adapted to dealing with
the vast amount of social input that had been presented before them. The “self”
of American society became seemingly mistrustful of what it was receiving
during exchange. A very powerful, and intelligent form of the “I” consciousness
emerged throughout the media audience that adapted to television and film
influence. The belief was that the three major television networks of the time
were misrepresenting, manipulating, and exploiting American society.

The American society began to
turn its back on the monopolistic attitudes and manipulations of the major
television networks of the day. An example of this was a large-scale anti-trust
suit filed against the networks by the United States Department of Justice in
the early 1970’s. In addition there was more public television funding and
rumors of broadcasters forming new networks. However, new concepts in mass
media exchange came on the market in the late 1970’s.

With the introduction of home
video and cable/satellite Television, the choice of a very large variety of
programming or social input developed for the individual and the home. Although
wide spread usage of this technological achievement had not yet fully come into
being, their growth had telegraphed a serious blow to the way in which society
exchanged with television medium. More competition for audience would greatly
improve the ability to choose between different social inputs and the quality
and value of the exchange would improve greatly for each separate individual.

Today, sports, movies,
education, and news are being presented on different channels. Video or DVD
rental and recording is being facilitated, and accessibility to personal
preferences is increasing through a variety of distribution channels. In this
way, the television and film industry is providing its audience with the type
of programming which an individual chooses to receive. Technology is again
expanding the amount and variety of social input available to the individual,
This choice has evolved naturally through the desire or impression of Mead’s
“I,” and its effect on communications marketing strategy and technology.

We are presently in another
transitional stage in the relationship between society, the self, and
interaction. The advent of the Internet has broadened the scope of an
individual’s ability to access a seemingly infinite amount of information on a
worldwide scale. We shall see the relationship between the self and societies
again evolve.

As we have seen, theories of
the makeup and processes of the self have changed in correlation with the
advances of communications in the twentieth century. This was caused by the
increase of social input of daily exchange by the individual and the
interactive environments. In order to discuss the evolution of the self in
today’s cultures, we must combine George Hubert Mead and Erving Goffman’s work,
and expose the adaptations of the self to its new levels of exchange or
interaction. The self today utilizes aspects of both theories, and expands upon
them in a continuous evolution.

Throughout the later decades
of the twentieth century we have witnessed a reawakening of Mead’s “I-Me”
internal conversation due to the choice, accessibility, and adaptation of
society to the variety of social input. However, there are still strong
influences of aspects of Goffman’s dramaturgical model affecting interaction.
The result is a “self” prepared to interact with a more complex process with
which to exchange. The increase in the amount and variety of twentieth century
input has caused the self to adapt to its evolving environment, thus the
theories of the self must also adapt. The dynamics of this new interaction
between the self and society that now exists is more intense, yet is derived
from the previous theories. A model for the self today is as follows:

Input

*

*

*

/\

/\

/\

“I”“Me”

\/

Internal Conversation

*

“Me role example referrals”

*

Internal Conversation

*

Compromise and Storage

*

Output

As it seems, input follows
the same path that it did in Mead’s model. It is first analyzed and then
conversed over. Then, it is analyzed by a second function. It searches for a
“Me” role portrayal to re-create output, and then reevaluated again to choose
the best output in correlation with the individual’s “I”.Then, the action is decided upon and
stored for future reference. Through the greater amount of social input found
in today’s society there exists a greater “Me” role example inventory to search
through. The very ethnology of an individual is devised by the editing of this
inventory. However, there is the ability to be influence by strong “I”
awareness to each action. The individual is not merely playacting roles in
every occasion, but relies on its “I” motivations to guide interaction. For
example, the use of playacting takes place when the “I-Me” conversation is
unable to come up with a response, and the individual ends up searching for a
“Me” role to present as output.

Today, the exchange of an
individual requires more sophistication in the manufacturing of an output for
interaction. Mead’s “I” has a dominant authority. This is how the individual
keeps control over the vast amount of information that it receives. Unlike
Goffman’s model, where an individual exchanges primarily through playacting,
today we have adapted to the amounts of input, and are capable of individuality
through Mead’s “I.” Mead and Goffman were both correct for the states of
interaction in their time period, but were unable to bare witness to the
evolutionary process that alters the self and interaction by technological
advancement.

The twentieth century had
been a period of rapid advancement in the technologies of the mass medias, as
we have explored, this growth in communications has had a profound effect on
the relationship of social exchange between individuals and their surroundings.
The ideas and philosophies of each separate culture have become more readily
available and effectively expressed to the senses of their members.
Consequently, the individual has become more astutely aware of their choices of
interactions.

Over the years, different
theories about the self reflected the growing complexity of the way in which an
individual interacts with its environment. George Hubert Mead and Erving Goffman
provide valid explanations of the way in which individuals respond in
interaction. However, their validity corresponds primarily to the time periods
in which they lived. Any truly relevant theory about the self must take into
account that the social exchange between individuals and their society’s
changes over time and technological advancement. Evidence of this process is
also seen in the life cycle of an individual, and the education of exchange
received throughout life. As we get older and more informed and adapt to new
forms information stored within, the level and complexity of our process of
interaction expands.

Through the later part of the
twentieth century and the early twenty-first the development of the adaptation
of the interaction of self with its particular environment (education or
assimilation of social input storage) has caused an increase in the necessity
of a faster pace of the development of the interpolation skills of an
individual from birth to adulthood. The enhancement of reason capabilities is
essential in the ability of an individual to successfully participate within
their social environment. Advancements in psychotropic and physiological
medications in this time period has been evolving to aid individuals with the
psychological and physical effects of the adaptation of an individual to modern
society (necessity is the mother of invention).

The widespread treatment of
stress, depression, and other mental illnesses caused by the inability to
properly process the overwhelming influx and sophistication of social input or
information has advanced the science of artificial manipulation of body
chemistry (psychiatry) to control the psychosis (breaks from socially accepted
thought and behavior) of the evolutionary adaptation to modern society. As
well, the advancement and widespread distribution of “illicit” psychotropic
experimentations has developed new forms of psychological abnormalities or
inabilities driving the need for pharmaceutical chemical experimentation to
conform psychotic behavior into the social accepted range. The need for
anti-depression and anti-psychotic medications is embattling the chemical
differences or abnormalities (considered mental illness) of individuals in hope
of creating an acceptable state of artificial mental control and conformity to
accepted realities and behaviors.

Chemical experimentation,
accepted and illicit, psychological (for example anti-psychotics for
schizo-affective disorders) and physical (steroids for enhance physical
performance), is naturally advancing the evolution of civilization. The effect
is akin to the theory of the “invisible hand” described by economists in
relation to the natural phenomenon of the motivations driving the concept of
capitalistic or free market economy. The financial reward of successful
marketing of chemical experimentation reacting to the advancement in
communication technology in both medical and illicit drug distribution is
directly motivating an accidental alteration of the complexity of the self and
its adaptive capability of exchange in the mind. Thus, driving forward the
destiny of evolutionary history of man’s relationship with his environment. The
guiding force of the phenomenon and its purpose is beyond the scope of human
comprehension and reason, but is defined and understood through the
psychological and often illogical belief systems of languages of religion
around the world, which were also designed for social conformity of
populations. This is similar to the use of psycotropic medication on the individual
(whom is the microcosm of civilization), and their ability to adapt in relation
to their social environment. Chemical conformity experimentation is science’s
current solution to the control of psychotic (anti-social) behavior at a
bio-chemical level as compared to the psychological manipulation of an
individual in the repetitive performances of the rituals of their faith.

Both are a metamorphosis of
the innate desire of world dominance present throughout the history of man
whether military, political, or by use of religious semiotic manipulation. Each
of the vehicles used are products of the technological influences on social
input and the processes of interaction between the self and society throughout
the different time periods and the manipulation of the current levels of
adaptive capability of the human condition during each point in the history of
each culture. The reality of the failure of each attempt at ruling all human
cultures is due to the lack of distribution of a unique, all encompassing
vehicle of social exchange technology that can be understood and similarly
processed by each individual on a global scale.

Man had created the computer
in the image of his perception of the basic functions of the mind. The computer
receives input, processes through set programs, stores the results in memory,
and produces output. The mind experiences social input, processes it in terms
of its relevance to the self (this can also be a definition of reason), stores
the input and analysis for reference, and produces output in the form of
interaction with the environment. Technology has made its greatest influence on
the amount and variety of daily social input.

As computer programs become
more advanced with man’s desire for greater storage, and increased function, so
does the framework of the self in response to the quality and quantity of
social input being communicated. Mead provided a basic format of the process of
the development of the self. His findings were based on a society of limited
(in comparison to today) daily social input. Goffman’s work describes a self
involved in a society adapting to the evolution of the mass medias. Today, man
is in another adaptation period as the self becomes more critical and experienced
in the evaluation of the vast amount of information available to interact with.

The nations or cultures of
the world are still developing, constricting, and abusing their lines of
communication. There exists a great variety of ways in which the relationship
between the self of individuals and their societies are being formed. This is a
good explanation of why there exists such a wide diversity in human cultures.
Each culture, depending on the state of evolution of the sophistication of the
social exchange, prescribes to different theories of the process of “self” and
the levels of interaction. In societies with less influence of modern media and
exposure to information, the simpler model of Mead will apply.As the sophistication of exchange
within each separate society or individual is technologically advanced and
adapted to, the evolution of the process of one’s method of interaction
evolves. However, through the advancements in the technologies of
communications and availability of social input and the expansion of its
distribution, man is well on his way to unifying the exchanges of the global
village.

Today, much of humanity is
beginning to have the ability to see itself as one community. Humanity walked
on the moon. Humanity is afraid of nuclear extinction. Humanity has polluted
the environment, and is fear of global warming. It is through the evolution of
the “exchange” or “interaction” where humanity is coming to terms with its own
predicament. With the advanced forms of communication created in the twentieth
century and beyond, man has begun to capture, manipulate, and create new forms
of sensory input, and communicate replication of thought through electronic
mass media. We are now communicating with much more clarity, and achieving
universal understanding through the technical advancement of exchange.
Compromise between cultures is becoming more and more inevitable through the
deterioration of barriers of communication between individuals.

Conclusion

George Hubert Mead and Erving
Goffman were both accurate in their own historical hypotheses. Many times we
interact by way of internal compromise between personal desire or identity and
the perception of social expectation, or, as in an unfamiliar social
environment, we act out a perception of stored input examples that attempt to
give the most effective performance. In other words, one’s “self” is formed
through evaluation of an individual’s perception of their motivations (“I”),
and the performance of multiple learned personalities (“Me” role examples). We
are given this ability through the vast amount and variety of daily social
input that we acquire throughout our lifetime (gaining more information as we
age), and its storage in memory to create output of interaction to the
environment. Communication technology is evolving the relationship between the
self and society by expanding the amount and variety of social input and its
accessibility. Biochemical experimentation, both psycotropic and physiological,
illicit or not, has become a vehicle for psychiatric adaptation to the
psychological impact of new sensory social inputs and their interpolation’s
effect on the mind and body. The “Invisible hand” guiding this metamorphosis of
this process of the evolution of social exchange is a natural phenomenon of
incomprehensible origin driven by the dichotomy created by economic motivation
versus health science. This process is assimilating world cultures into one
society bonded by technological advancements in communication, its distribution
and adaptation. The global society’s “self” is being located by the evolution
of the sophistication of the exchange between each individual and their unique
environment. Survival for humanity is a summation of the continuous exploration
of sensory input that is processed and stored, and then, by use of reason, is
presented for optimum projected results in any given exchange with any given
environment at the acquired ability, desire, and life experience of each unique
individual.